Canonical has unveiled a complete branding overhaul, redesigning everything from the Ubuntu website to its logos and marketing material. However, what interests me more are the new Gtk+ themes, and even then, I'm not interested in the colour choices and the like. No - what stood out to me right away was not the theme itself - but the placement of the titlebar widgets.

You've missed the point, chances are, when you viewed the page reading left to right, your eyes saw the logo then jumped to the navebar on the right then back down to the content on the page, most users doing this would have moved there mouse cursor to the right side of the page out of the way of the content on the left and started to scroll after noticing that the nav options weren't what the were looking for.